The bookstore three blocks away

There’s a used bookstore three blocks from the house we lived in for eighteen years in St. Louis. We never went in.

That still makes me cringe, because Nathan and I are used-bookstore people. We’ve browsed them all over the world: Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and plenty of places in between. It became a tradition as early as college, but especially during our years living in Australia, when we were traveling almost every month. Wherever we landed, we’d find the little secondhand shop and come away with one, two, or six books. Sometimes a classic. More often, our favorites were the old, worn, local ones nobody has heard of, with beautiful covers and sometimes gilded pages, about the history of the place we’d just been.

And the one on our own doorstep? We talked about it for years. “We really need to go there.” We took it for granted, never put it on the calendar, never said “this Saturday,” and then we moved across an ocean. I’m a little sad about it, and honestly, more than a little embarrassed. We crossed the world for bookstores and never managed three blocks.

Going 120 miles an hour

The truth is, for most of those years I was living to work. I spent more than twenty years in aerospace program management, and though it was incredibly challenging, it was also deeply rewarding. It’s taken a lot of me, but it’s been worth it, and I wouldn’t change anything.

But our time in Australia had already shown us something. Living there, we saw a different balance up close: so many people around us worked to live, rather than lived to work. It was obvious in almost every conversation we had – both outside and inside the office. Once your eyes are opened to that, you can’t unsee it. And yet, when we moved home, I was pulled right back into my old pace. Funny enough, knowing better made it harder, not easier!

The decision

When Nathan was offered a role in England – an opportunity he greatly deserved – I already knew my job couldn’t come with us. I pictured both paths: him going while I stayed, and me going with him. The more I grappled with it, the clearer it got: I didn’t want to choose work over life.

So I stepped away from a role I loved, without knowing what I’d do on the other side. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made – incredibly bittersweet. I still miss my team and what we had built together.

What to do with the window

A move like this gives you a pause, whether you asked for one or not. I stayed back to prepare our house, sell a car, put things into storage, and pack our shipment; on the other side, I took the lead on settling our dog Phoebe into a new country (which took more than we expected), making our new place feel like home, and getting us organized to explore our new backyard. Somewhere in that space, I finally took some time to step back and ask: what do I actually want?

I could have filled this stretch with busywork. It would have kept me more than occupied, in exactly the kind of default I’d crossed an ocean to leave behind. Instead, I decided to do something brave with it – starting something of my own that would have been a leap too far back home. Here, I was already out of my comfort zone, with Europe on our doorstep.

Knowing the runway ahead is shorter than the path I’ve already paved behind me, I want to spend it deliberately.

This time

There’s something about a defined window of time abroad that gives you the urgency to schedule the meaning-to’s, rather than watching them go by for years. Kenilworth Castle is about fifteen minutes from our new home, and thankfully, we didn’t wait eighteen years to go. While we were there, we read about Sir Walter Scott’s novel Kenilworth, published in 1821, and thought how fun it would be to find an old copy someday. (Honestly, we figured we never would.)

On a recent trip to Edinburgh, Scott’s hometown, we went looking. Shop after shop, nothing – and we’d all but given up. Then, on our way to something else, we walked past one more little bookshop we hadn’t spotted on the map, The Gently Mad Book Shop & Bookbinder, and thought, what the heck, let’s pop in just in case.

There it was! We only found it because we knew what we were looking for. Spontaneity favors the prepared.

Everything in one place

That same spirit is behind what I’m building now, and what has surprised me is how many different sides of me it draws on. The nerdy planner (the color-coded spreadsheet is still mine), the numbers side (also nerdy, who am I kidding), and the creative part (which I had set aside when I closed my event-planning business some years ago, and am finally taking back). And then there’s the technical side – a constant even through my leadership years – now going much deeper, learning new software and design tools, and even building a few of my own. There’s also a slightly crazy part of me that gets a kick out of starting a business across two countries, with all the extra “joys” that brings. I feel challenged, passionate, and inspired in equal measure.

What it’s for

Rigour & Reverie is for exactly that: helping all of us put the things we’ve been meaning to do on the calendar, before the window closes. It starts with what’s right in front of us, the holidays, with printable hosting kits and keepsakes, so the planning gets done early, and you can just enjoy the best parts. Much more will follow – destination by destination, occasion by occasion.

We tend to fill our bucket lists with faraway places, but it isn’t only about the big trips. Sometimes it’s the bookstore three blocks away.

So, what’s yours? I’d love to hear.

Cheers,
Gayle